To Sarnia’s border-city distinctions could soon come a new one: Ontario’s only border point without its own jail.

Taken aback by the cash-strapped province’s surprise budget decision last year to close the 51-year-old jail, locals have tenaciously fought the move and say they aren’t backing down despite a challenging year in 2012.

“We’re not giving up,” said Dave McPhail, who helped form the local save-the-jail committee.

“The committee is still extremely active. We’re still looking at every and all possibilities to try and make things happen.”

The year got off to a disappointing start when, in January, Corrections Minister Madeleine Meilleur reconfirmed the province’s decision to close the jail.

That was followed by a letter from Health Minister Deb Matthews, saying she couldn’t help either.

This fall, along with its letter-writing campaign, the group carpeted the political waterfront at Queen’s Park, sending information packages to all seven Ontario Liberal leadership candidates, ministry assistants, deputies, opposition leaders and their critics.

“We have not received anything back at this point,” McPhail said.

“We’ve also asked repeatedly for a full accounting on the business case that the ministry has used to justify its decision. They refuse to respond to that.”

The province says closing the Sarnia jail — one of several moribund lockups in Southwestern Ontario — will save close to $2 million a year.

But McPhail and his group predict the cost of transporting prisoners, with the jail closed, could be upwards of $4 million, outstripping any jail-closing savings.

Jails in Owen Sound and Walkerton have already been closed and Chatham’s has been added to the chopping block.

The Sarnia group also says costs to retrofit Sarnia’s courthouse if the jail closes could exceed $1 million.

An Attorney General Ministry study put the cost of adding cells and a port for loading and unloading prisoners between $1 million and $2 million.

More than 14 individual prisoner cells will need to be built in the courthouse to handle prisoners on trial if the jail closes, Sarnia’s police chief has said.